This is Thievery!
I worked in a box office at a large Broadway touring theatre and saw people do crazy things to get into the theatre by curtain time, or even after it started. Let’s just say, the glass at the box office is there for a reason.
Once I was working the Sunday matinee of a short run of the 12th time RENT came through town. It was not even close to a sell-out and it was a half house out of 2,800 seats.
So, it should have been an easy shift. I was on will-call M-Z but my window was closest to the first door so I got all of the problems.
I’m chilling, just waiting for the 30 or so people I have tickets for to show up. It was right after we opened so it was slow.
One hour to curtain, the house manager has the theater open for seating. My very first customer was totally nuts. Maybe ten minutes in a woman shows up in front of my window, shoves her tickets through the slot, and starts repeatedly screaming, “This is thievery!”
She had her teenage daughter with her and they were dressed in their best theatre clothes, so I could tell that they were probably from some small town.
This was clearly a big deal for them, coming to the big city to see a real Broadway touring show. It took maybe five minutes to get her to calm down,
Working with the microphone-glass combo thing, with her yelling “Thievery!” to every passerby. I looked at her tickets, center floor 12 rows back on the aisle, best in the house.
She explained that they are obstructed. I was very confused by this because never once have these seats been obstructed for any show that came through.
She said, “There’s a huge guitar in the way! We can’t see the stage!”
At this point, after pointing to the location of these seats on the chart and her confirming that these were the seats she sat in, I was so confused that I decided to walk her in.
She was screaming while her poor daughter was crying. I walked her and her daughter to the seats, told her that these were the seats she paid for and congratulated her on the purchase.
They were not, in fact, obstructed. The mom sat down and refused to say a word to me when I asked if there was anything else I can them help with.
The daughter then told me that the first time they had sat on the far house-right side.
Again, I was confused and asked the usher in that section about it and he told me she barreled past him when he asked to see her tickets and then started screaming, “Thievery!” I think it was her word choice that struck me. Story credit: Reddit / ThiefofToms